


The Cracks in The Floorboards Match The Splinters in My Heart

by LoveRemains



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Some Fluff, Some angst, mostly longing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4691273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveRemains/pseuds/LoveRemains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a moment in time where facades are shed and vulnerable hearts peer from behind their barricades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cracks in The Floorboards Match The Splinters in My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So this is honestly just a drabble I wrote in order to start chipping away at my writer's block. It's been too long and I'm trying to get back in the swing of things in the midst of some personal chaos. So expect a few more random oneshots most likely and as always I'm sorry for any mistakes and if it sucks. :)
> 
> Also if you like music, these are the two songs that served as inspiration for this!
> 
> Lie in the Sound - Tresspassers William
> 
> 5AM- Amber Run

“ _Do you miss me?_ ”

That’s how it starts, nothing more than a simple question voiced to the void with the most fragile of breaths and a heavy heart. 

It is the catalyst of what’s to come, of the unknown, allowing a simple shift in the paths they now wander aimless, disoriented to the point where it is unsure if they can find their way back. 

Everything they have been burying beneath the confines of invisible armor, tucked safely behind ribcages and tired eyes begin to unlock, a twist of rusty gears and  
misshaped parts. 

The broken pieces of what was lost and what could have been still lay at their feet. 

The air hangs like a thick fog, shrouding them from the outside world. 

It is here, where night has fallen and darkness seeps in to fill the emptiness left behind by the sleeping sun, that the pain of longing almost seems bearable. 

“ _Like someone cut a hole in me_.”

Almost. 

//

The floor is cold under her back, unforgiving and rigid and it’s nearly impossible to get comfortable. Hours have passed since their conversation and Carmilla can’t shake Laura’s words from the forefront of her mind. They swarm her conscience, stuck on an endless loop that she’s sure will slowly drive her to madness. They are the blood to her coffin, endless and consuming. She tries to think of other things, of anything, but those seven words always draw her back until her eyes start to burn again and blur with unshed tears.

She feels it too. The hole. 

It sits in the center of her chest, hollow and exposed just behind her first and second ribs. Cut with the blades of blunt scissors, the dull ache follows her like a shadow, ever present. There is never a time when the phantom wound grants her relief. Instead it grows, expands, the pain increasing the farther Laura draws away from her, the farther their tether stretches thin across empty space. 

A part of Carmilla is missing and she feels strangely hollow without it, weightless in the worst way. She knows that piece is Laura, and it’s a cruel form of torture to know that she can’t give the girl what she wants. No matter how much she desires to. They don’t fit like two perfect puzzle pieces, they never have. But that doesn’t make her love any less prominent. If anything, it burns brighter, despite her weak effort to tame it in exchange for some solace. 

Carmilla is entertaining the thought of their situation being a case of the right love at the wrong time when she hears the floor above her creak. Instantly her eyes flick to her ceiling, already adjusted to the blackness of her hiding place. There must be a night light on somewhere above now because she watches as the dim, pink glow wavers in and out as whoever it is moves about. When the light settles, thin streams of color filter through the cracks between the slabs of wood, reaching out to her and Carmilla catches a quiet sniffle before she’s engulfed by the rhythm of a heartbeat. 

It is a song she knows all too well.

 _Laura_.

The steady melody wraps around her senses, cradling and caressing as it drums out a private concert meant only for her. Her throat constricts when the track skips and stutters, and then begins thudding harder. Suddenly, Laura’s heartbeat is everywhere, reverberating off of every surface, and rattling in the cavity of Carmilla’s chest so insistently that it feels as if her own heart has awakened from its eternal slumber and begun thrumming along in a haunting duet.

Carmilla allows her eyes to close for a moment, reveling in the sensation of being alive again, of being whole. She presses a hand to the space just under her chest, grounding herself to the moment as the vacant space inside fractures and reaches out for its counterpart. It sends a jolt of pain through her and suddenly she’s stretching her free hand out, extending her arm far enough so that her fingertips graze the wood. She can almost feel Laura’s warmth radiating through the spaces. 

The vampire wants to call out to her human, concern and curiosity flooding through her dead veins, but she’s afraid to ruin the haze of the strange balance they’re suspended in. So she stays quiet and focuses on the song of the only heart that can quell the chaos of her soul. 

//

Above, Laura finds her body against the floor before her mind can fully catch on to what she’s doing. Of their own volition, her legs carried her here when the bed began to feel less like a comfortable oasis and more like an endless sea of emptiness. When she takes in her surroundings with her red-rimmed eyes, she breathes out a sigh of what can only be described as contentment in her half sleep state and presses her cheek further against the cold wood. The air she’s been holding captive in her lungs releases slowly and she tries to melt as far as she can into the ground, anything to be closer to Carmilla without having to voice her intent out loud. She misses her, more than she’s missed anyone in a very long time and the craving to be close is not something she can deny herself. That striking thought, along with the notion that the constant object of her thoughts is sleeping just beneath her seems to kick start her heart, for it sputters with excitement before thudding strong with purpose, a pang she can feel all the way in her throat. 

Pulling her bottom lip into her mouth to worry between her teeth, she reaches out with her left hand and begins tracing the various patterns in the grain of the wood. She circles the knots, follows the rivers of dark oak before it’s easy enough to drift off course and draw her own shapes. Her random illustrations eventually turn into words that form the thoughts and poems she usually keeps guarded, locked away for no one to find. Laura allows them to pour out of her for now, invisibly embedded into the floorboards, splintering outwards from the confines of her heart. 

It’s not easy, missing someone who is so close to you, who is there right in front of you every day as a reminder of how badly you screwed things up. 

She’d seen Carmilla cry before, but not like that. Not like she was falling apart through her eyes, defeated and resigned. 

And it kills Laura, that what she wants is too much and what Carmilla can give is not enough. 

It kills her because she can’t fix it this time. 

Not when she’s just as broken. 

Her head begins to throb with an ache that matches the one in her back, but she stays on the floor as long as she can before the exhaustion in her bones forces her to retreat back to the bed. She ignores the way it still smells like Carmilla and hopes that sleep will be quick to claim her. 

//

Carmilla doesn’t realize the comfort that Laura brought until she feels it slipping away with the sound of soft, unhurried footsteps like the whisper of smoke evaporating into cold night air. She listens for a moment and when all she’s met with is the static of silence, she tightens her jaw and resolves to forget that anything happened. Nothing has changed. Except for the fact that it has.

She tries to sleep, but the steady beat of Laura’s heart still thundering in her ears won’t allow it.

Another hour or so lapses by before her impulses take over and she quietly makes her way out of her makeshift safe house, and into the bedroom where her love sleeps restlessly. 

At the doorway, Carmilla is instantly assaulted with the scent of Laura. Floral notes and something that is so uniquely her invade the vampire’s senses and she hesitates, heartstrings pulling. Wide eyes fixed on the small, sleeping form beneath the bed sheets, she acquiesces that her rash decision was the wrong one to act on. This is not her place any more, no matter how much she longs for it to be. She knows where she stands. And it is not here.

Turning on her heel, Carmilla starts to head back to the trap door, but then the most pained whimper falls from Laura’s lips in her sleep and Carmilla is at her side in an instant before she can stop herself. A breeze she creates with her speed dances through her hair, settles it back over her shoulders in deep, chocolate curls and she freezes, hand already outstretched towards the girl. 

Instead of touching her, she drops it to the space of mattress between them and takes a moment to look at Laura. She hasn’t been this close to her in weeks and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss it. Carmilla studies the tired circles under Laura’s eyes, the marred flesh of her lips from nervous chewing, the new creases of worry in her otherwise smooth forehead. It bothers her that even in sleep, Laura seems to still be plagued by something. Her fist is clutched around the edge of her pillowcase, tight enough that her knuckles are turning white. The lines on her forehead deepen and she draws in a deep breath before whimpering again, so fragile and wounded. 

Without thinking and acting on instinct alone, Carmilla tentatively reaches forward and touches the tips of her pointer and middle fingers to Laura’s forehead. Applying the lightest amount of pressure for a moment, she then smoothes the back of her hand down the side of the girl’s cheek. 

With feather-like touches, she chases the worry from Laura’s features, melts the fear of her nightmare until her breathing evens out and her hand relaxes around the material of her pillow. 

Carmilla stays until she’s sure Laura is safe from herself and then she finally retreats back to the hideaway in order to get some sleep of her own.

The following day, it’s as if the conversation they had never happened. Carmilla finds her defensive wall of snark returning ten-fold in lieu of Laura as hell bent as ever to save the school at any cost, regardless of who is put at risk. 

Carmilla figures because of that, their night will exist as a one-time deal and nothing more. She resigns that it won’t happen again.

Only it does. Not once, but often enough for it to turn into a sort of routine. 

In the nights that follow, Laura ventures out to lie along the floorboards, and only when it’s clear she’s asleep back in the safety of her bed, does Carmilla emerge to keep her nightmares at bay. 

It’s on the fifth consecutive night when things change. 

On the third, Carmilla dared to lie next to her, the desire to be close having grown unbearable, but it is two days later that something shifts again. 

The analog clock on the wall reads 5AM. Carmilla can feel the slight rise in temperature, can feel the impending day on the precipice of making itself known once again. The arrival of the rising sun is always her cue to head back, so she ever so gently begins to slip away, back to the temporary exile she doubts she’ll ever get used to. It’s just as she’s about to leave the bed completely that she feels a familiar warmth wrap around her cold wrist. 

Pricks of electricity shoot out from the point of contact, twirling and flitting up the length of her arm as she turns her gaze down to be met with Laura’s eyes watching her, open and unguarded. Silence charges the space between them, but it’s filled with so many unspoken words and as Laura’s fingertips press gently into Carmilla’s porcelain flesh and tug slowly, she can’t help but follow the pull. It’s one she never could resist, even if she were to try. 

Side by side, while the world still sleeps, they allow themselves to forget. Because it’s safe in the darkness. And while nothing is resolved and they’re both still nursing invisible wounds, their respective pieces jagged and unable to fit for the moment, it doesn’t matter. These hours are theirs. 

Here, in the purgatory of night and day, between dreams and reality, it’s okay.


End file.
